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Category Archives: Glamour and the sacred realms

Drinking Mead – Woodcut, circa 1600Honey is the oldest sweetener known to man. Just when “man” first discovered this delightful treat is a matter of considerable conjecture. However, it is quite possible that Og, son of Ug, was the first to observe an animal raiding a bee’s storehouse. With his native curiosity aroused, he decided to see what was the particular attraction of this golden liquid. A dip… a sip… a lick of the lip… then “OUCH”! Og made his second discovery of the day. Bees have stingers! It wasn’t long before Og invented fire, so he could have smoke to put the bees to sleep, thus avoiding the painful consequences of his honey habit.One may only guess at how the “invention” of mead may have come about. Personally, I think it was more a matter of discovery! Consider this scenario; the bee tree has been broached and some of the honey drips into a hollow at the bottom. There it mixes with rainwater and sits around for several weeks. By happy chance, Ig, son of Og, son of Ug, sees this spill in the base of the tree and believes this to be more honey. He takes a taste and finds it somehow subtly different from the normal flavor. Maybe not quite so sweet, but with an extra little “tang”. Many sips later, the fermented honey is gone and Ig weaves and wobbles his way back to the cave.Now, you may think I am just making up tall tales, but it is quite likely that this is how man first discovered the joy of mild intoxication. Later, Ig’s great, great grandson would experiment and refine the process under more controlled conditions. Possibly, he started with hollow gourds, filling them with various mixtures of water and honey, and letting them sit at the back of the cave for differing lengths of time. This was sufficient for a small group of hunter-gatherers but, with the formation of clans from related families, there was a need for larger quantities of mead. Thus, pottery was invented. Large earthenware crocks were made for the sole purpose of containing the fermentation process. Now, the whole clan could get high! Eventually, the news of this remarkable discovery spread. How is that, you may ask. Because there was a need to tell the neighboring clans about the joys of mead, language was invented. By this time, the clan brewer had been elevated to a position nearly equal to that of the chief and the shaman. The language they created was simple at the first, but sufficient to communicate concepts like “Wow! What a blast!” and “Oh, my aching head!”. Of course, as mead evolved, so did the language. There came a need for words like, “bouquet”, “flavor”, and “lingering aftertaste”. Words were also invented to facilitate the trade in mead. Much later, money was invented as a means of exchange, so even clans without a competent brewer could enjoy the benefits of mead. Not long after that, taxes were invented as a way for the chief to get a little extra in his own pocket. Somewhere in all that, the wheel was built so large quantities of mead could be easily moved to the market.

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What does “The Froth of Days” “Mood Indigo” and “A Streetcar named desire” have in common? The tinge of hope. The splendor of dreaming violets, with a racing scent speeding into the periwinkle skies. The welcoming pleasure within a garden of silken fleurs du sucre vanille.

When I saw an enchanting yet slightly perturbed wisp of melancholy in a photo called Ecume des jours? I began to discover the book by Boris Vian called “The Froth of Daydreams” In this photo titled “Ecume des jours” I was wont to ponder this photo collage of an Asian woman as the main feature in a collage dream like state, where flora and fauna was superimposed as her mind-cranial sacral area of her head.

I shall try to describe it? Inside of this almost park which was cropped into her hair was the man whom wandered within a garden mirrored all betwixt the parts which made up her silhouette. (If I could I would post it here, but I do not have permission from the artist.) As if women were trying to discover and recover her true nature. Don’t we all feel a bit Frankenstein?

It got my mind to wander into this novel called “The Froth of Days” The title of the photo I meandered onto, on FB by a person named Astral Vibes. I really love the poetic sensuality all encompassed in the title. Alas? What is the thread like Hawaiian leis of orchids which link these 3 themes above. “The Froth of Days” “Mood Indigo” and “A Streetcar named desire” ?

Does anyone ever reminisce about Vivian Leigh in A Streetcar named desire, when she says things like ” I depend upon the kindness of strangers” in her genteel fragile imaginary paradigm. How she may be busted flat in Baton Rouge but she can muster up a dull copper penny for a Chinese lantern made of paper to shield herself from the brutal bright, raw piercing light of a mere barbaric bulb.

As if Stanley himself were that animal like villain, brutish bare and incongruous bulb, which she must curry favor with to no avail. She feels more comfortable in the secrets of the shadows. Of course we adore Marlon Brando strangely in his obscene yet clothed masculinity. There shall never be another king whom became a man as he. Alas, he is the sun itself in all it’s unabashed inferno.

It’s uncharted and inflamed pure madness itself which drew Icarus to burn its winged dream. Be wary of too much light impure. Perhaps the perfect women is 1/2 Blanche and 1/2 Stella? Stella which means stars. The sun is the brightest star and if not for the pink moon of night? All teal tinged froth azure, would become singed, and all flowers burned.

The indirect shade, so forgiving. So lush. The underlying mood and sincerity of those whom are ill is what Blanche speaks of, evokes a sapphire mood indigo. Mood Indigo, the languid and bittersweet blue with its absence of light. The absence of glaring and burning golden fire. Flowers seem to burst either in the magic of dawn after a the earth has its mystical sleep? Or, at twilight when in a grand flourish gust of music buds begin to blossom. The sweetness of the earths imagination. Perhaps flowers are the kindest strangers whom always invite one to ponder beauty.

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When I think of Mood Indigo, it is one mood where we begin in a doldrums of doubt. Perhaps a hope dashed? A love unrequited. Then for a moment, the heart takes a vacation from its heartache and begins to daydream? Here perhaps begins the recipe for escape. Dreams chase the tail of the Cheshire cat, yet we need the sparkling glimmer of inspiration to spark us onto new passions? If we have enough faith we might pounce upon one of our daydreams to make them real. This brings me to this novel called “The Froth of Days” described here:

Froth on the Daydream

Book by Boris Vian

Froth on the Daydream is a 1947 novel by the French author Boris Vian. It tells the story of a man who marries a woman, who develops an illness that can only be treated by surrounding her with flowers. Wikipedia

Flowers are the stuff of angels. Warm yet never scorching. A bridge of hope in their inviting rejuvenating nature. I would love to see this film and be healed with flowers. Roses remind me that in the dense, damp, musky earth, so gravity leaden with geologic granite and fibrous bark of trees? That there is music which the melancholy planet speaks. There is suddenly a counter force which defies the mundane. Suddenly there is poetry in spite of the existentialist rancor of stony abyss. Roses! Spring itself defies all logic. What is it that suddenly renews our little planet with chirping sudden blossoms and greenery supreme. Spring is nature falling in love. It dares to rise above hopelessness. About logic. All that was old is again renewed. For me this is the froth of days. Just as the most weary soul is suddenly revived by a 4 o’clock cappuccino. The magic of meringue. The uplifting roar of caffeine. Those bewitching spells of molecules which send the spirit to rise above the mundane. It is for this reason that I have devoted my life to the the grande dame, “Lady Camellia.” Chanel grew enchanted by camellias as did Dumas. In the secrets of the blossoms? All the fairies know the humble yet powerful elixir of the camellias, which is Camellia Sinesis. Camellia Sinesis of all the cultivars in the plethora of these round many radiating petals so perfectly curved is the most humble of all. The ugly duckling in fact of their kind, which alone like Cinderella majestically becomes the life flowing healing within its leaves and blossoms.

It is where water and sky are sipped and we are suddenly revived. How brave is hope within a rose? How daring it is to appear in the most scoundrel of vacant rubbish lots. In Mexico, the virgin Mary is reputed to have shown her divinity by causing roses to grow in the most barren land, in order to prove that there is always powerful unseen forces at work upon Mother earth. I can’t wait to see this movie Ecume Des Jours but I shall buy the book as well. To be under the spell of which only beautiful blossoms can break the calcification of a hardened heart. We witness perhaps God’s alchemical healing. Flowers are the rainbows of the earth after frightful storms.

Most fearful matters of life according to Zen is merely transformation and celebration or resistance to change and the trail of thorns it entails. If we refuse to add the creme of tartar of wisdom or the sparkles of salty wit in soda? These most basic ingredients in life make the Willy Wonka Chocolate factory bubble. If we go to sleep each night with hate? We are not a garden where fragrant little bells of ivory Muguet lilies can grow, but a twisted bramble inside of acidic honks, squeaks and squawks. It’s as if not following mother natures recipes in stubborn foolishness we become lead balloons!

Then the little squirrels and winged creatures can sense our metallic bitterness and scamper away to where the sun and the moon waltz. I too am sick with the disease of which only flowers can cure.

Some how? There is no space, but only love betwixt the ocean and the sky.
The flood of clouds as effervescent as seltzery music. The horizon makes an algebraic impossible equation. The two azure atmospheric phenomenons of oceans and skies are one. There is no space in between the cerulean bodies except an eclipse of froth like frosting. Such spinning is the levity of love. It’s as if the angels have been baking and the mixologists potions stirring.

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The incredible Shelby Elsbree of “A Tu Tu with Tea” Does this ballerina live a charmed life or what! I have the greatest admiration for ballerinas, as my dear Sister studied when I was a child. Ballet is simply a sort of divinity of the arts for me. I ran across Shelby’s site in my love of tea, not realizing just how accomplished she truly is as a dancer and as she puts it a petite gourmand. If ever there exists an enchanting world, it seems she lives there. Hard work and devotion to her craft as a ballerina is a passport to a sumptuous magical realm indeed!

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Somehow I stumbled upon Padmini the Dancing Queen blog here on wordpress. It does not have a link to attach. Alas, I share with you their love of Padmini the Dancing Queen. We felt exhilarated with the glimmers and shimmers of a much more innocent era. The rhythms of such an ancient Indo musical art form makes me realize we are in America quite indebted to India and Eastern realms of movement. Enjoy! Special thanks to Padmini the Dancing Queen site.